About Jeff and Seth- Though I've become somewhat inactive as a player over the past year I have been privy to what's been going on in California Quiz Bowl. My own career witnessed the ascendency of Seth Teitler from an enthusiastic high school player entering college with only science bowl experience and of course the knowledge that comes with being a good student to just really a phenomenal player. What impresses me the most is how much dedication and effort he puts in to writing questions for the sake of his own improvement and for the benefit of the club. And that improvement has really been something. Though I've never seen him steal a bike from a frat he's hella down for the cause and his 48ppg at ACF Nationals is a testament to that. I've only seen Jeff Hoppes play a few times this year but his buzzer speed and knowledge is quite phenomenal as well and of course when a player is top 5 every year at NAQT nationals and his team repeatedly wins the Undergraduate championship far and away then yes there are things you become aware of. As a generalist and history player, at least on the west coast, there may be no better. In terms of obscure medieval history I think I've met my match. It is however unfair to rank players based on their performance at ACF Nats as so many are apt to do. When you have a team that is that well balanced who knows how close the intra-team buzzer race was. I can imagine there were quite a few. There was shadow effect all around. While I'm sure we all appreciate Seth being humble about his own performance (and many of us should take heed of such) he is a fantastic player and I truly admire his drive, skill and constant desire to improve. The addition of a top notch history player in Jeff really gave Berkeley what it needed to win ACF nationals - plus Jeff's all around skill is again just amazing - I believe he powered some biology question at NAQT ICT in the final (please, i don't want to hear about what is or isn't wrong with NAQT's questions). While Jon, David, Jeff and Seth's PPGs taken out of context might not look like something we haven't seen before, each of those players are contenders in any singles tournament. The scores would not have been so balanced otherwise. The California Circuit- While California has made some rumblings over the last few years I think everyone might have finally realized that they would do something more significant this year. Auspicious Incident seemed to be an omen of sorts and a testament to both Berkeley and Stanford's talent. Joon and Raj B. are both great players and I know Raj is thrilled to have won a tournament and that was not just any tournament. For at least an instant, the mid-west's monopoly on national championships was broken up for the first time since 1998. As an aside, it is still a problem that the California circuit (and at least for right now, the circuit really only exists in California) is very top heavy. I think we can all imagine why that is so (and it has to do with graduate students). UCLA is certainly on the rise but CALTech has lost much of its footing and will hopefully recover. UC Riverside is starting to play more and so is USC. Hopefully teams like UC Davis will remove head from rear and attend more tournaments. I do also find it unfathomable to believe that Subash might not be the best active player overall. 160ppg in ANY tournament? Come on. Thanks for listening. -Ross Ritterman, Best Economics Player in the Circuit (with more nobel prize winner knowledge than David Farris!!)
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